Thread: hooking up!

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This is apparently a street-driven truck, so I'd be very leery about worn shocks and setting back the brake shoes. More than leery, I guess. I wouldn't do it. Also, ladder bars are not a good idea unless you remove your current trailing arms. Ladder bars plus trailing arms equals a bind, and probably worse traction. The stock '72 Chevy trailing arms are effectively ladder bars anyhow.

A good start would be installing a limited slip differential and air bags in your coil springs. You can tune the pressure in the airbags for for equal traction. Also install a set of poly-graphite bushings in the rear suspension. Get rid of the factory rubber junk bushings.

http://www.p-s-t.com/truck/tvrcab.html

Install good performance shock absorbers. Add a good pair of wide, sticky rear tires, and you have a major improvement.

Oh, and you might want to tune down the volume a bit. If you can't take a little Ford/Chevy/Mopar ragging every now and then, you're definitely in the wrong hobby.

Damn Dave, you really stepped in it.

Dave is often teasing us Chevy guys. But it's all good. After all he Found most of his rides On the Road Dead, right?. And part of his anger stems from the fact that it's tough to over come a fundamental lack of head bolts, and worse, the use of inferior materials in the bottom end of the Ford factory power plants.

And don't forget the domination of FORD over the likes of the Hemi and SBC and BBC at the drag strip. Occasionally the Ford guys will let off the gas and permit a Chevy or Dodge to win a race, just so they have somebody to race next week. And of course we all love and respect deeply the renowned handling ability of the venerable Mustang; in a straight line maybe.

Just Teasing ........................ Kitz

I'd be leery, too, Rifle! No way I'd drive on the street with a setup like that either. Those were approaches that were used 55 years ago, and then only on the strip (supposedly). I figured nobody would put in useless shocks, disable his brakes, cripple his water pump and alternator and power steering, make his front tires rock hard, then hit the street and try to outrun somebody else dumb enough to street race.

Maybe I'm wrong.

Jim

Hey Kitz, if we ever get done with our respective projects it sure would be fun to line them up someday!!!!! Hope you plan on keeping yours awhile, you'll definitely be up and running first!!! Maybe we need to set up a CHR Shootout!!! Don't schedule it till 2007, I doubt I'll be done this year!!!!

I know this is dif. but people used to unload their cars off a trailer nitely way back. Before they finished interstate 95 through Gaston, NC that was a perfect place.

Before you go and spend a lot of money, find some weight that you can make stationary in your bed while racing. Try it out and see. If the excess weight ends up not helping the traction much and being detremental to your E/T, THEN get some suspension upgrades.

Just put the engine in the box. End of problem.

Dave I would be honored to line 'em up and run with you! Don't worry, I'll still have it. My two boys will have to fight over it after I'm gone.

Since the topic here is hooking up I might mention that 'everyone' says my car won't hook up . I'll bet I can work through that though if needed, especially with all the experience in here! Right now I'd LOVE to have that problem! I'm hoping to get her running in March for a 30-40 mile prelim break-in and road test. Then break it down for final body work and paint. Maybe complete by May? We'll see!

Best Wishes, Kitz

Hey Kitz, I just noticed where you live!!! When the kid gets out of college, hopefully moving down that way. Have a nephew in Austin, family in Houston, Dayton, and LaPorte

you need to preload your right rear and get some tires and some loose front shocks

.... in addition to everything else that's been mentioned; put the battery in a battery box that's located over the right rear wheel. Stiffen up your trailing arms by welding a plate on the open side {if it is in fact a 3 sided trailing arm}...... bill

ps, if your gas tank is located towards the rear of the bed then try a full tank of gas. If the tank is behind the rear seat then put a fuel cell as far back in the bed as you can & take out the stock tank..... anything that weights much that's on the front end? If you don't use it than take it off. The less the front weights the better it will transfer weight {i/e remove front bumper, a/c, etc.}. Get headers, they not only improve performance but they weight less.

Originally posted by RJ & CJ
Before you go and spend a lot of money, find some weight that you can make stationary in your bed while racing. Try it out and see. If the excess weight ends up not helping the traction much and being detremental to your E/T, THEN get some suspension upgrades.

If you want good track times then you need to do what all the previous post stated. If you just want to hook up at the red light then just add some weight to the back. I experimented with this alot with my 66 chevy truck in high school. 400 sb 4 speed 3.73 gear with L60 tires. I took a piece of railroad iron and cut it to fit inside at the very back of the frame, cut two holes through it and bolted it up to the frame. The 150 lbs allowed the truck to hook up only spinning a few feet.

Actually if you really want to waste someone and pop their bubble you need to trade the truck on a 4x4 dually diesel with automatic and 4.10 gears. I'm partial to Dodge but in reality the Duramax is the best diesel truck for drag racing. yes they will run 12's and pull your 5th wheel trailer too as well as last for several hundred k miles. Diesels aren't cheap to make go fast but they are electronic and pretty easy to work on. Nothing like being walked on by a 7000 pound truck. I just talked to a local guy with a Dodge and he makes 600+ hp and 1200+ foot pounds torque!! honest injun..I saw him at the dyno. All electronic. Purrs like a kitten...well maybe like a lion. The thing can still get 19-20 mpg too.

If the guy with the 7000 pound truck only has 600 hp, my calculator sez he's going to be running 13.89 @ 97mph. It would seem to take about 750 hp to run a 12.89 @104...... Think somebody was maybe pulling your leg a bit about the quarter mile time, or else they got a gadzillion dollars in that dually to get that diesel to make 750 hp!!! Not saying it can't be done, but it would take some really trick suspension and slicks to get that pickup to hook up the 750 hp enough to get it in the 12's!!!! JMO

maybe those wimpy powerstrokes won't run a time worth lookin at but the duramaxes sure did impress me. We have a local construction guy around here that makes those kind of numbers on his duramax dually. He likes to go out to the track and walk up and down all those people that think they have something worth looking at. Getting run over by a 7000 lbs construction truck is a really humbling experience